Hillary Clinton’s pandering to Latinos is insulting

If Hillary Clinton plans to mislead, malign and manipulate her way back into the White House, I’d appreciate it if she’d leave my grandmothers out of it.

For Latinos, our abuelas are sacred, and we’d rather not see them turned into political props. The Democratic front-runner and her campaign recently made a condescending attempt to convince Latinos that La Hillary is just like us. Or, rather, just like our grandmothers.

Don’t go there.

The post, by Clinton staffer Paola Luisi, listed “7 things Hillary Clinton has in common with your abuela.” Such as: “She worries about children everywhere.” “She knows what’s best.” “She reads to you before bedtime.”

What a fairy tale. Latino Twitter responded with contempt, immediately giving rise to the hashtag #notmyabuela.

The problem isn’t that Clinton panders to Latinos. The problem is that she hasn’t done the work to learn about the folks to whom she’s pandering.

These thoughtless gestures feel like day-old flowers picked up at the last minute from a gas station on the way to a party. They paper over what she hasn’t done to address Latino concerns — on immigration, education, health care, police violence, etc.

Last summer, Clinton said that thousands of children fleeing death in Central America “should be sent back” because “we have to send a clear message: Just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay.”

The message that Latinos got was that Clinton was either clueless, heartless or both.

Now Team Hillary wants Latino voters to look past their candidate’s wealth, fame and power and see a kind and nurturing figure.

They want us to forget that we’re talking about a former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state who became a bestselling author with eight-figure advances and earned more than $250,000 per speech on the lecture circuit.

This isn’t the sort of life that my now deceased grandmothers — both of whom who were born in Texas, toiled as farmworkers, never made it past sixth grade, married in their teens, and raised large families by working feverishly alongside their husbands before going home to cook, clean and wash clothes — could have ever imagined, much less related to.

Clinton’s generation of women complained about the glass ceiling. That’s a luxury when you grow up with dirt floors and your idea of a good job is one where you get to work indoors.

My grandmothers were the glue that held their families together.

Most of all, my grandmothers had ironclad values and deeply cemented views of right and wrong, and they didn’t barter them away for the sake of ambition or political expediency.

Anyone who believes the silly stereotype that Latin women are weak, passive and submissive has never actually met one. And they don’t know the first thing about abuelas.